


comfort me with apples

by miraphora



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Mission Fic, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr Prompt, Undercover as a Couple, canoodling, cuddle prompt, fruit as a seduction tactic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-15 21:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11239113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miraphora/pseuds/miraphora
Summary: The problem was that these covers required a certain level of…performative public affection. And there was nothing professional about the way he felt around Jyn Erso.





	comfort me with apples

**Author's Note:**

> Canoodling without plot should be a category.

The problem with their new mission became obvious almost immediately upon landing planetside. _There are covers a couple can take that a lone agent cannot_ , Draven had said. And it was true, and Cassian had done it in the past, though he preferred to work alone or with Kay, but those had been other professionals.

The problem was that these covers required a certain level of…performative public affection. And there was nothing professional about the way he felt around Jyn Erso.

When he took her hand as they disembarked the passenger shuttle, she shot him a quick, inscrutable look. He was used to being able to read her, and the fact that he was having trouble telling what she was thinking made him nervous. But her hand curled in his, quiescent and warm.

She had two modes, usually, of deception--impassivity and irreverent misdirection. The ease of her, as she caught a wind-blown strand of hair and tucked it back into her scarf, and smiled up charmingly at the spaceport inspector who examined their scandocs and turned a careless eye briefly over their bags--her ease caught him off-guard, and he gazed down at her for too long.

“Newlyweds,” the inspector muttered, dismissive.

Their cover should be performative to be effective, but he wasn’t acting.

The hotel, a fabricated structure with a more organic facade meant to blend with the pre-Clone Wars era architecture of the city center, was another test. A single room, a single bed--they had slept together, for warmth, for comfort, to guard against nightmares, but there was a difference somehow between a cramped bunk or shipboard cot, and the luxurious sprawl of a real mattress. Who needed all of that space, just to sleep?

He caught her eyes on him as they tucked their bags away and swept the room for transmitters. Her gaze flickered to the bed after, and his heart thumped painfully in his chest.

The distance between them eroded as the afternoon went on. Their commercial transport had arrived earlier than anticipated, and there was no reason to delay the start of their surveillance. They left the hotel, and when he put a hand at her waist, she tucked herself in against his side like she belonged there. She had always fit against him like a missing piece, and when he had still thought she would leave, it had seemed a cosmic irony that afterwards he would realize the exact shape of what was missing from his life.

They strolled through an open-air market, and Jyn stopped and lingered at stalls selling fruits and cheeses and smoked meats. Treats disappeared into the loose satchel slung over her shoulder, and he watched in tender bemusement, wondering if he looked like a man looking at his new wife, or only like a man gazing on the other half of his heart. It wasn’t an expression he had rehearsed, and he had no way of knowing how much he was giving away.

She looked at him with her crooked thief’s smile, and when she tucked a smooth red-skinned fruit shaped a bit like a heart into her bag, he thought she knew that she had him in her hands as well.

They made their way without seeming purpose to a grassy square in the center of the city, peppered with ornamental flowering trees, and peopled with families enjoying the sun. Stolid government buildings ringed the square on all sides, but the one they were concerned with lay at the southeastern corner. They found a shady spot beneath a tree tipped with strange fuzzy flowers in a riot of pink and tangerine, and Jyn lay out the food and a bottle of sweet wine while he spread out a blanket.

It was startlingly domestic, confusingly romantic.

They sat so they both could see a different approach to the building, their shoulders angled in towards one another, but Jyn’s eyes were on him as he poured the wine, and there was a small smile playing at her lips. He quirked a brow at her, which she ignored, taking her glass and tipping it to him in an insouciant toast before sipping.

*

It was crisp and sweet and would have been better chilled, but the hint of a startled expression that flickered across Cassian’s face at the sweetness on his tongue gave her a thrill. She suspected his idea of undercover involved cold and deprivation and tension, but there had been a time, between Saw’s abandonment and her prison cell on Wobani, where Jyn had been the sort to enjoy small pleasures when she could afford them.

Neither of them was skilled at feigning small-talk, but she didn’t think they had ever needed words to convey intimacy. It had been a point of some confusion for her, for awhile, the way they gravitated into each others’ space, the way any conversation or argument ended with their faces mere breaths apart. She had never put up with people looming into her space before him, but something about the way he swayed down into her, like she was a black hole dragging him in--she’d never admit it, but she liked it.

She turned her face into the cover of her scarf, hiding a smirk, as she picked apart the rind of a round red fruit. Segments swollen with juice shifted precariously under her fingertips as she pried them loose. He was watching the building, glance casual and disinterested, when she leaned into his space.

He turned his head a fraction, brown eyes dark and sparking with interest. She grinned at him crookedly, holding a segment of the fruit, already dripping with juice, against his lips.

The interest deepened, kindled, and she held his gaze so her eyes wouldn’t be tempted to flicker down, to watch the way his thin lips parted around the fruit, his tongue flicking forward to catch a stray droplet--

His lean brown fingers curled around her wrist, gently caging her, and he lifted her hand, tilting his head to chase a droplet that had strayed along the crease of her palm and down the tender inner skin of her wrist.

Her breath went thin in her throat, and she watched him seal his lips to her skin, felt the gentle pull as he suckled, his tongue-tip stroking.

It was all she could do not to make a sound. She couldn’t do anything at all about the flush that crawled up her throat, rose against her pale skin, visible even in the shadow of her scarf.

He was smirking when he pulled away, her wrist still in his hand, his thumb stroking absently.

“Don’t tease me unless you’re prepared to pay the price,” he said, evenly.

“Who said I was teasing?” She tilted her chin, challenging him.

It didn’t occur to them to dissemble for observers. Their fraught intimacy was genuine.

Cassian tightened his fingers around her wrist, reeling her in slowly, watching for her reaction. If she pulled away, he would let her go.

Jyn was hyperaware of the exposure of their location, but there was a security in their cover. Agents disguised as newlyweds which disguised neatly the very real attraction sparking between them, the very real heat curling through her.

She let herself be pulled in against him, folded into his side. He slid his arms around her, anchoring her close, her back against his chest. He hooked his chin over her shoulder, the feather-soft strands of his hair mussed against the folds of her scarf.

She smiled, bemused, but relaxed against him. “Not even a kiss?”

A quiet chuckle, which she felt more against her back than heard vocalized. His breath stirred the loose hairs hanging beside her ears, as his fingers curled in the edge of her scarf and tugged it back, exposing the side of her throat.

“Who said that?” he murmured, before his lips brushed delicately along a throbbing pulse-point.

She tried very hard not to say anything at all, after that. If his name escaped, softly gasped, no one was near enough to hear.


End file.
